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Comment by oriettaxx | Hacker News Reader

must say Tax in Italy are high, but that is not really the issue: as I wrote, if you are on that fund you just waste 27% or your income.

The problem with taxes maybe is just:

* you never really know how much you have to pay: you cannot handle it by yourself (you need an private adviser)

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Yes, and in slovenia it's 25%, and in other countries its at mostly the same level. Then theres's health insurance (12.92% in slovenia). Only after that you get income taxes. And above that you get VAT (22% here) for your services. So basically, you charge your customers ~5k, and get ~2k of net payout (the rest goes to the government) ... and that's without any actual business expenses.

Denmark has even higher taxes, but the country still works better than italy.

Calculating taxes is pretty easy in most countries, especially if you have to do it yourself (eg. independent contractors, etc.).

The only problem here is, that once one country fails (eg. they stop paying out pensions), all the other ones will go into full panic mode, and the shit will hit the fan.

so in Slovenia the pension contributions are 25% + you have to add health insurance 13%?, plus income?

in the UK the above amount to almost nothig: but then, of course you need your own pension scheme and health insurance.

yes, it is a lot, but the point here is not just the amount, but what you get: with the Italian "Gestione Separata" pension fund you just waste your money (and is 27% of your income !).

The amount is split between you and your employer, but if you're self employed it doesn't really matter (and in any way, it's you who has to earn the company the whole amount).

Here's the calculator: https://data.si/izracun-place/

In "01 Plača" in "Plača" enter the gross monthly amount, and at the right side ("03 Izračun", there's "Strošek izplačevalca" (what the employer pays all together), and "Neto plača" (net pay you get).

Hah! Belgium, world tax champion, can do better than that!

You have a salaried job. You set up a side gig after working hours. After business expenses, you pay: * (depending on the province) ~100€/year of flat rate provincial tax, regardless of income * 22% of independent contractor "solidary contribution", for which you get _literally_ nothing in return * if you have a somewhat decent paying main job, ~53.5% federal and local tax

No wonder so many people's side gigs here either go unreported or show zero profit...

with VAT, it should not be a cost for you, is it? (I mean, it should be a cost just for the "value added")

You have to charge your customers the VAT, so if you're employed as a plumber, you actually have to charge the customers directly everything including the VAT. It's not the you who pays it directly, but you have to earn your company the amount including the vat.

VAT is a sales tax (or purchase tax). The "value added" bit is a neat scheme allowing tax authorities to collect efficiently - it's nothing to do with value, it's about price; the government taxes transactions (the vendor pays). Like all sales taxes, it's regressive: poor people spend more of their income on purchases than rich people, so they spend more on sales tax.

Income tax and wealth tax are much more progressive, but they're also much harder to assess and collect.

Just a small correction: as a business, you subtract the VAT on your suppliers’ invoices from the VAT invoiced to your customers. Effectively you remit the taxes only on the added value of your business, hence the name. This makes it also harder to avoid taxes. But in the end, the end user pays the tax on the full price, as you say.

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